Hands-only CPR: Hitting restart on hearts

Brian LaCroix, an Alliant Health paramedic, demonstrates hands-only CPR to Hastings High School freshmen this month. The technique to save people from sudden cardiac arrest involves pumping the chest hard and fast until rescue personnel can arrive. (Pioneer Press: John Doman)

Bill Schwartz doesn't remember his children screaming.

He doesn't remember his car rolling down the driveway, or the impact as it hit a neighbor's house.

He doesn't recall getting CPR. But that's why he's alive today.

The help he received at the start of a family outing in 2009 saved his life.

Now Schwartz, 54, of Apple Valley, is one of a platoon of workers training thousands of citizens to save lives using a rapidly spreading CPR technique.

Their hands-only method has been taught to about 50,000 people in the metro area, from Burnsville to Woodbury to Anoka. And the training already is saving lives -- and giving people confidence to act in an emergency.

"Always be on guard for things happening to others and do something.

Apple Valley resident Bill Schwartz was with his now-12-year-old triplets from left, Lily, Evan and Will, when he went into sudden cardiac arrest in 2009. A neighbor performed hands-only CPR on him. (Pioneer Press: Chris Polydoroff)

Don't do nothing," Schwartz said in an interview this month. "No matter what you do, you can feel good that you did something."

Minnesota's wave of hands-only CPR instruction is aimed at what Katie Tewalt says is the No. 1 cause of death in America -- sudden cardiac arrest. Tewalt is the supervisor of Allina Health's Heart Safe Communities. Her group seeks to increase the survival rate for sudden cardiac arrest, which often is confused with a heart attack.

Heart attacks are caused by a lack of blood flowing to the heart -- and have been described as a plumbing problem.

Sudden cardiac arrests are like electrical problems, in which the nerves stop sending impulses telling the heart to beat.

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There is usually no warning -- no genetic cause, no clogged arteries, no pain or shortness of breath.

"People just drop. They do not know what is happening to them," said Kathy Lewis, co-chair of Lakeville Heart Restart, a CPR training program.

And they drop by the thousands. Sudden cardiac arrest claims 359,000 victims a year in the U.S., according to the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation.

"This is like two 747s crashing into each other and everyone dying, every day," said Allina Health's Tewalt.

For decades, experts have recommended mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, for use on almost anyone who collapses suddenly. It provides oxygen to the lungs and pushes blood through the body.

But the method has a fatal flaw. Many people won't use it.

Even with someone's life in the balance, would-be rescuers often refuse to put their mouths on those of strangers.

It may be too complicated -- or too gross -- for most people to learn.

"People would just say, 'Oh, no.' They were terrified to touch one of the Resusci-Annies. They would say, 'My wife knows it,' " said Angela Kain, a Woodbury firefighter who is leading that city's hands-only CPR training drive.

In Woodbury, Kain said her program has reached more than 6,500 people -- on track to hit the goal of 7,000 in the 12-month period ending in February.

Kain went to classrooms, churches, community fundraisers. She even developed a new technique -- teaching CPR to shoppers waiting in line. As crowds waited for Sam's Club and J.C. Penney to open on Black Friday, Kain's crews were there.

"This was a group of people who tend not to take CPR classes," said Kain. "We want to build their confidence to get in there and start something."

Schwartz recalled the morning he almost died.

He had no family history of heart problems, wasn't overweight and didn't have the faintest sign of trouble beforehand.

He had gathered his 9-year-old triplets into the car for a shopping trip. He started the car, then blacked out. The car rolled down the driveway and into the house across the street.

One of his sons called 911, and another ran to the house of a neighbor -- who knew hands-on CPR.

The experience made Schwartz an advocate of hands-only CPR. He has given hundreds of his students the same message: "You are going to come across people in your life who need help."